Culture Wars,Secular Realignment,and the Gender Gap in Party Identification

Changes in the U.S. partisan balance over the past decade are often attributed to the enhanced political salience of cultural issues. Yet as white men have continued to become more Republican in recent years, white women increasingly identify with the Democrats. To the extent that cultural issues are influencing this partisan change, men and women must be responding differently to this cultural agenda. Using a pooled ANES data set from 1988 through 2000, I explore the extent to which cultural values are responsible for this gender realignment. Findings suggest that salient cultural issues influence the partisan choices of both men and women, however in somewhat different ways. For women, the issues themselves—reproductive rights, female equality, and legal protection for homosexuals—have become increasingly important determinants of party identification. For men, the influence of cultural conflict on partisanship is argued to be equally pervasive, albeit less direct.     

Parental Socialization and Rational Party Identification

This article constructs a rational choice model of the intergenerational transmission of party identification. At a given time, identification with a party is the estimate of average future benefits from candidates of that party. Experienced voters constantly update this expectation using political events since the last realignment to predict the future in accordance with Bayes Rule. New voters, however, have no experience of their own. In Bayesian terms, they need prior beliefs. It turns out that under certain specified conditions, these young voters should rationally choose to employ parental experience to help orient themselves to politics. The resulting model predicts several well–known features of political socialization, including the strong correlation between parents' and children's partisanship, the greater partisan independence of young voters, and the tendency of partisan alignments to decay.     

Sleaze or clear blue water?: the evolution of corporate and pressure group representation at the major UK party conferences

There has been growing academic and public interest in corporate political lobbying in both the UK and EU in recent years. In Britain, links between politicians and commercial interests have been one of the areas examined by the Committee on Standards in Public Life (‘the Nolan Committee’ and now ‘the Neill Committee’). A visible but under‐researched aspect of political lobbying by firms and other groups is the range of activities that take place at annual party conferences. An exhaustive study of these activities at the three main British party conferences between 1994–97 is reported, covering the period from Tony Blair's first appearance as party leader to the aftermath of the 1997 General Election. There is clear growth of visible lobbying, particularly at the Labour conferences, over the period leading up to the election, and a dropping off in 1997; particularly at the Conservative conference. The implications of the results for organisations, and particularly for public affairs practitioners, are considered. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications     

Intersectoral differences in public affairs: the duty of public reporting in public administration

Public reporting is a requirement for public affairs practitioners in public administration because of the democratic context in which government operates. By reporting to the public‐at‐large on agency activities, government agencies contributed to an informed citizenry, the essential foundation of a democracy. For public affairs in business administration and non‐profit administration, public reporting is desirable rather than mandatory. Public reporting was traditionally accomplished indirectly, through news media coverage of government. However, recent research suggests a diminution of interest by the media in fulfilling its role as an instrument of democracy. This means that the public reporting obligation of public affairs professionals in public administration needs to shift to direct reporting, through such products as annual reports, newsletters, TV programmes, Internet websites etc. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

经济全球化与21世纪党的建设创新

经济全球化给党的建设提出了新课题。必须适应经济全球化的新形势,实施党的建设创新战略,开创经济全球化时代党的建设和社会主义现代化建设的新局面。     

以“三个代表”为指针 加强中心城区党建工作

加强中心城区党建工作必须以"三个代表”的思想为指针,紧密结合城区党建工作的实际情况,调查研究,总结经验,找出薄弱环节,查找深层次原因,切实解决存在的问题,探索并建立中心城区党建工作的新思路和新机制.     

I'm Not That Liberal: Explaining Conservative Democratic Identification

The persistence of self-identified conservative Democrats in the electorate is puzzling. Both the ongoing Southern realignment and the recent ideological polarization should have resulted in conservative Democrats changing their party identification to accord with their discrepant ideology. Instead, the number of conservative Democrats, as a percentage of the total electorate, has held steady over the last 20 years. I propose an explanation for this phenomenon that draws upon theories of mass belief systems, as well as an element of recent political reality: the popular stigmatization of the word liberal. I argue that Democrats who are susceptible to elite cues garner positive affect toward the conservative label and negative affect toward the liberal label. They then identify themselves accordingly, regardless of their issue positions.     

The five shades of grey: party systems and authoritarian institutions in post-Soviet Central Asian states

ABSTRACT

This article overviews and seeks to explain the processes of party system formation in the post-Soviet Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) by focusing on a crucial party-system property, fragmentation. The analysis reveals that to a much greater extent than in democracies, where party systems are largely shaped by societal factors, the level of party system fragmentation in autocracies is determined by the scope of presidential powers, as entrenched in the formal institutional order and reflected in the national constitution. The level of authoritarianism is largely inconsequential for party system fragmentation, while the role of electoral rules is secondary. Institutionally weak and institutionally strong autocratic presidents have a preference for fragmented party systems, while presidents with an intermediate range of powers seek and obtain low levels of party system fragmentation.     

论共产党治党治国的理论创新

“三个代表”重要思想无疑是马克思主义中国化的最新理论成果,那么,他“新”在何处呢?从无产阶级政党治党治国这一角度来看,“三个代表”重要思想的理论创新主要表现在他解决了中国共产党“为谁执政”、在执政过程中“如何治党”、“如何治国”的根本问题,深化了对人类社会发展规律、执政党的执政规律和社会主义建设规律的认识,开辟了马克思主义发展的新境界。     

时代变化背景下对“两个务必”的重新审视

党的两代领导人在不同历史背景下都对"两个务必"作出了要求.在当前全面建设小康社会的新形势下,重新强调"两个务必",对于维护好、实现好、发展好人民群众利益,巩固党的执政地位,实现党的十六大制定的发展目标具有十分重要的意义.